


Rebound

by swimmingfox



Series: Potential [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Sex, Because Podrya is my jam, Bristol, British, Comedy, Deconstructionism, Eggs, Emergence, F/M, Fun, Gin - Freeform, Jokes!, Love, M/M, Nonsense, Philosophy lessons with Professor Swimmingfox, Philosophy of Language, Podrya, Politics/PhilosophyStudent!Sansa, Pool, Post-structuralism, Quite a lot of jokes, Romantic Comedy, SchoolCounsellor!Sandor, Swearing, Utilitarianism, Wetherspoons, pubs, sansan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:07:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6092521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/pseuds/swimmingfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa’s relationship with her Politics lecturer Dr Baelish has ended in unceremonious style and she rocks up to stay with Arya, Aunt Lysa and Robin in Bristol, south-west England. Where she bumps into Arya’s ex-school counsellor, Sandor Clegane. </p><p>Sequel to Potential that shifts to a SanSan vibe, with a side-serving of Podryadorability. Merriment and a slight philosophy focus. But mostly it’s gin and pool-playing and swearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Utilitarianism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SharkAria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkAria/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh, I keep getting distracted from the fics I am supposed to be writing with Modern AU and picsets! Goddammit. Also, I am suddenly alarmingly away from home for a few weeks and needing to keep connected to people! So commenting is SO MOST EXTREMELY WELCOME.
> 
> If you haven’t read Potential and are all about the SanSan, ah go on, read it first anyway, just to get you in the mood for the British mise-en-scène. It will also give you a bit more background to this one, and Sandor appearances as well as a little Sansa one, though it is all about Arya really. But otherwise the Arya/Podrick stuff might seem a bit odd.
> 
> Shortish and sweetish, unlike Sandor! Hope you like it!
> 
> PS Sansa is 20, Arya is 16.

_“The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.”  
― Leon Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours_

***

**Arya**

‘Robin, for fuck’s sake.’

Arya was doing push-ups on the floor with her Year 12 Geology book opened in front of her, because even though she had finished all her GCSE exams and should have been loafing around with more weed than blood in her system, the bastards at Casterly Academy expected her to prep for the autumn. And because, even though she had spent much of Year 11 being a dumbass, she had turned over a whole new leaf. Though it was pretty hard concentrating on anything in this mental asylum.

More strangulated euphonium noises from the room next door, accompanied by the same loop that Robin had recorded on his keyboard, over and over. 

‘Shut up!’ she yelled, for the fiftieth time. 

Living at Aunt Lysa’s had calmed down for a while over the spring, when she had acquired herself a boyfriend (researcher of terrestrial worms, specialist in annelids eg gross leeches), though Arya had found his cold, dead eyes and unemotional voice utterly creepy and had been glad to see the back of him. Though she did get good villain-inspiration for her graphic novel. Since then, Lysa had reverted back to her deranged self, which was part-empowered woman, part-total weepy mess. And Robin was getting more adventurous with his composing.

Now it was about to get busier. Because yesterday Sansa had messaged her, announcing that she was coming over from uni. Her tone had seemed a bit weird, for her. There had been a distinct lack of flower and heart and fireworks emojis.

Robin was now singing in a flute-ish boy soprano. She could not wait for his fucking voice to break.

The doorbell rang. Arya pushed herself up onto her knees, her biceps throbbing. One day she would be totally badass.

‘Welcome to the fucking madhouse,’ she said, opening the door. ‘I could have come to London, you know.’

Her sister turned around, and her eyes were red and raw and her nose was full of snot. 

‘Dumped,’ Sansa said, before her voice became a wail. ‘I’ve been dumped.’

***

**Sansa**

Sansa lay on Arya’s bed with her head on her sister’s lap, which had transformed into a soggy moorland bog filled with never-ending tears. Because Petyr had dumped her. Or perhaps she had dumped him. She still wasn’t quite sure.

‘What a fucking douche,’ said Arya. 

Sansa had breezed through her first year at the London School of Economics. London was super-fun, if ridiculously expensive, and she had made new friends instantly. Her lecturers were largely engaging and she rose to the occasion, writing essays on subjects as varied as John Stuart Mill’s ‘The Subjection of Women’, and the basis of political obligation, with furious enthusiasm. In her second year, she had opted for a module on Justice and Legitimacy: the Morality of Politics, with Dr Petyr Baelish.

Everyone fancied Petyr Baelish a bit. He was stylish (Paul Smith shirts, navy-blue suede Kurt Geiger shoes, a tie with a cute mockingbird print that probably cost three hundred pounds), spoke in a strange, gravely thoughtful Irish burr. He had written three pop-science books on the origin of government and law and was in line to do a documentary on Machiavelli for BBC4.

And out of everyone, he had chosen _her_.

Initially, it had seemed to be a highly-flattering meeting of minds. He had told her after a small-group seminar that she had an arresting way of thinking and that he wanted to pick her brains about his latest book, ‘Not All Bad: Re-assessing Plato and the Myth of the Dictator.’ Over dinner. And in bed, as it turned out. After that – well, all sorts of things had taken place, some more repeatable than others, and Sansa had found herself being whisked away on all manner of glamorous dates whilst also often taking notes for him and occasionally correcting his spelling.

Sansa wiped her nose with her hand and looked at the long slug-trail of snot along her thumb. ‘I hate myself.’

Petyr had told her that she was a goddess, that she was Venus mixed with Diana mixed with Phyrrha. He would go on about Herodotus and the Budni nation, whilst running his fingers through her admittedly deliciously silken locks (Aussie Hair Repair, Bumble and Bumble Leave-In Conditioner). He would be very disappointed to see her looking like this.

‘Don’t hate yourself,’ said Arya. ‘Hate _him_ , because he is a massive cunt.’

Two days ago, Sansa had gone round to his riverside flat in Wapping, a bottle of Chablis far exceeding a second-year student’s income (zero, in fact rather in the red) in her bag to surprise him after he’d said he couldn’t see her that night for dinner after all. He was working hard on his latest chapter, and she would alleviate his toil by wrapping her fabulous long limbs around him and making his penis taste of Chablis whilst he told her about the problem.

A girl in a midnight blue silk dressing gown, open practically to the waist, had answered the door. His midnight blue silk dressing gown. Petyr had clearly generously given it to her, as he was sitting on his brown suede sofa with not a stitch on. 

‘I don’t know what I did wrong,’ she whispered to Arya.

‘You didn’t do anyfuckingthing wrong,’ said her sister, who was beginning to sound quite impatient. ‘That guy is a total dickwad. I could have told you that from the start.’

He had not looked the slightest bit guilt-ridden. In fact, with jaw-dropping casualness, he’d tried to invite her in, seemingly suggesting that all three of them could happily spend the night in each other’s company.

Sansa had done quite a lot for Petyr. _With_ Petyr. But right then, with the third-year student looking her up and down with a not-very-veiled sense of triumph, she was not having it. ‘Fuck you and your threesomes and your third years and your shit book,’ Sansa had shouted, before throwing the bottle of Chablis in past her, where it had not smashed but rolled to Petyr’s feet. He had picked it up and informed her that it was an inferior brand and that she still had a lot to learn, where wine was concerned.

Sansa rolled onto her side. She felt disgusting. Her ribs ached. ‘Just because you’ve got the perfect man.’

‘He’s not perfect.’ Arya looked at her. ‘Well, actually, he sort of is.’

Sansa would never have thought that Arya would have a boyfriend like Podrick. When they came to visit her in London, she assumed that her sister must have had quite a knock to the head. Pod wasn’t very grungy or stoner or metal or any of the things that she assumed he would be. He was clever and creative and polite and completely adorable – not her thing, but his eyebrows could probably have their own TV show – and Arya seemed to be fiercely into him.

‘Do you think Aunt Lysa will let me stay here for a bit?’ Sansa said, looking up at her sister through a heavy Instagram filter of tears and runny mascara. ‘I don’t want to be on my own at ours.’

Their parents were at a month-long climate change conference in Guatemala. Bran was home-schooled and so got to go with them, as did Rickon, although he had probably made an escape for it and befriended some Mayan tribespeople and become their ten year-old king. He was a little unruly.

Arya looked down at her in a way that meant she was both pleased at the prospect and really annoyed. ‘You asked for it.’

***

**Arya**

Podrick was pretty perfect. Everything _was_ perfect, really. And therefore she felt horrible.

Since they had got together in February (having done everything in the slightly wonky order of tutor sessions, sex, and then an initially tentative going-out), Arya and Pod had been thick as thieves. She joined him for fencing classes with Syrian-Syrio, who proclaimed her a natural talent, and found herself jabbing Pod in her sleep. Aunt Lysa only allowed her to stay at his on weekend nights, though what she didn’t know about after-school study days wouldn’t hurt her.

They did actually study together, sometimes, though Arya would make herself scarce when she realised that she was unhelpfully distracting him once exam-time kicked in. He had proper exams to do, ones that would take him to Imperial College if he got all A grades. Instead she would go and find Jojen, hanging out with his arm louchely round Tommen, who had become the most popular boy in the school by being both über-posh and coming out, with the full support of Casterly Academy’s headmaster (and Tommen’s grandfather) Mr Lannister. Incredibly and completely against all previous records, Jojen was waiting until Tommen was sixteen before what he called ‘his deflowering ceremony.’ He had a calendar on his phone on which he crossed off the days, and was always updating Arya with his latest grandiose plans, even though there were still four months to go.

Arya and Pod went to tons of gigs. Pod’s modular synth was beginning to take over his garage. They had gone to a festival in Oxfordshire together and taken in all sorts of insanely bizarre music, though Arya had also been pretty successful in getting him to like some of the bands that she did. They had camped and got stoned (Arya more than Pod) and watched musicians do well weird things (Pod more than Arya) and danced like lunatics (relatively equal amounts).

Arya would sometimes go round to his house even when he wasn’t there to hang out with Uncle Ilyn, who was schooling her in the ways of 1970s pubrock, and 1980s post-punk for that matter, all through the medium of slightly scratched vinyl. 

Recently, she had carefully asked Pod about his parents - who had died in a car crash when he was thirteen - again. He had cried all night in her arms, and she felt tall (obviously only in her head, what with entirely being a short-arse) and grown-up and basically a super-girlfriend. 

And that made everything horrible. 

Because now she wondered if she was in love with him. 

***

**Sansa**

‘Right. That’s it.’

Sansa was sobbing quietly into her copy of ‘The Tears of Eros’, a book she had bought because Petyr had suggested it, though reading about the proximate death in sadomasochistic practices was not really making her feel very good.

And now Arya was standing over her. 

‘What?’ Sansa said, in a rather wispy voice. Her head hurt. Her _everything_ hurt.

‘It’s Saturday night. We’re going out,’ said Arya. ‘Now.’ She kicked the leg of the bed. ‘Up, beeatch.’

It was at least nice to be out in Bristol again. The drinks were a third cheaper, and it was a bit less touristy. Pod was working, so Arya had arranged for them to meet up with her best friend in her new school, Jojen, and his sister Meera and her boyfriend, none of whom she had met before.

Meera (marine biology student, Newcastle University) was lovely. A tumble of curls and a wry smile and straight away she had assessed Sansa’s extreme trauma and pulled her into a corner of the pub, away from Arya and Jojen, who were sniggering over a black and white YouTube clip of a French noir cat.

‘It’s not on, Sansa, what he did. I know I don’t know the whole situation, but some things are plain enough.’

Sansa ran her finger around the rim of her empty glass. ‘I know. I just can’t help think that it was my fault. That I wasn’t good enough. Clever enough.’

‘You seem plenty clever to me,’ said Meera, with a disarming look.

‘I know I seem pathetic, but – I thought he loved me.’

‘I’ve seen microscopic marine algae with more sophisticated behaviour.’ 

Sansa smiled then.

‘You know what you need?’

‘More gin?’ said Sansa, a little more morosely again.

‘Definitely.’ Meera looked over to the bar, where her boyfriend was still politely waiting, having let three other people order before him. ‘But as well as that, you need a rebound.’

Sansa screwed up her nose forlornly. ‘It’s not really me.’ She’d only slept with one other person before Petyr. Sleeping around was not really her style.

‘It’s not really anyone. I know it sounds trashy, but it’s like curing a hangover with hair of the dog. Getting back on the horse and all that.’ Meera leant on her elbow with a little sigh. ‘Last summer I was going out with a guy who dumped me for someone else. I made a proper effort to get out and have some fun, and it made me feel loads better and remember that I was fabulous and it was _him_ who was the moron.’ She sat back, a gently confident smile at the man approaching their table. ‘And then I was in the right place mentally to meet Jon.’

‘Two gin and tonics, the expensive kind,’ he said, sitting down next to them with a carefully warm smile at Sansa, who was obviously giving off the vibes of an unhinged, jilted lover.

‘Thank you, honey,’ said Meera, tucking her hand into his arm and kissing him on the cheek. 

Jon was frowny and cute and Meera was angular and cute. They had almost exactly the same hair and were wearing similar jumpers. A perfect Pinterest photo to be hashtagged with the words _couples_ and _my ambition_ and _oh the cuteness kill me_.

‘Seriously, Sansa,’ Meera said to her, leaning forward, keen-eyed and earnest. ‘Think about your own happiness. Not his. That’s what’s most important right now.’

Jon (business and management Masters student, Newcastle University, President of the Mountaineering Club) smiled the sort of very serious smile he seemed to specialise in, before gently clinking his own glass with Sansa’s. ‘Chin up.’

Sansa downed her gin.

***

**Arya**

‘I love you, Arya. You are sick. The best sister of all my sisters.’

‘I am your only sister,’ said Arya, letting Sansa link arms with her as they walked down the street in the drizzle, if only to keep her standing up straight.

Sansa was now quite drunk. But at least that was better than weeping over weird, miserable philosophy books and gazing mournfully out of the window. Meera and her puppydog-on-downers boyfriend seemed to have cheered her up a bit, as well as Jojen later making her laugh with all his best philosophy jokes. 

‘How many deconstructionists does it take to change a light bulb,’ said Sansa, sniggering to herself.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Arya, who hated every single thing about philosophy. 

‘Petyr never told a single joke,’ said Sansa. ‘In fact, I can’t remember him ever laughing.’

‘That is because he is a fucktard,’ said Arya, whose main entertainment was trying to think of new ways to insult Dr Penis Gaylish, as Jojen had dubbed him.

‘Where are we going?’

They were walking in the direction of the bus stop. ‘Home.’

‘No. Not home. One more pub.’

‘You’re a bit pissed, sis.’

‘Nooo,’ said Sansa, drawing the word out as if a swinging lasso. She stood straighter. ‘I am fine. Fabulously fine. One more pub.’ A tug on her arm. ‘Go on. I’ll just have a half. Of _vodka_ ,’ she added, in an unsubtle whisper to herself.

***

**Sansa**

‘Oh, I haven’t been in here for _ages_ ,’ said Sansa, with inappropriate amounts of romantic nostalgia, seeing as Arya had shoved her into the nearest Wetherspoon’s. 

Like many a Wetherspoon’s in this great nation, the pub had been converted from an idiosyncratic historical building (in this case, a nineteenth century shopping arcade, complete with tea rooms) into a blandly-interiored mecca of cheap alcohol and substandard food, beloved of students and thrifty beer-lovers alike. It had a long central bar and a carpet that was trying to be a William Morris design, if William Morris had been a colourblind five-year-old child.

‘Oh, crap,’ said Arya, trying to turn them around towards the exit. She had seen someone at the bar.

‘What?’ Sansa glanced over, and recognising no one. ‘Who is it?’

‘Ugh. No one. Let’s go.’

‘No, you promised. _I’ll_ get them.’ Sansa flounced to the bar, ignoring Arya’s hissing sounds. She was fabulous, like Meera said, and she deserved better.

The man next to her glanced over. She beamed at him. ‘Hello,’ she said.

He raised his eyebrows, and some of the skin on the side of his face creased. In fact, it stayed creased. He had a lot of scarring. Maybe a bad car accident or something. ‘Hello yourself,’ he said.

A faint Scottish accent. _Kilts_ , thought Sansa. Kilts and things under kilts. Though this guy would need lots of plaid to cover him. He was massive.

He was looking past her, to where Arya was attempting to hide. ‘You’re kidding me,’ he said.

Arya gave a loud sigh. ‘What’s up, shitface.’

‘What are you doing in here, you little squirt?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Sansa, getting her protective older sister-vibes on. She was Buffy and she was also Katniss. ‘She’s with me.’

‘Is that right,’ he said and glared at them both.

‘Yeah,’ said Arya, kicking the rail at the bottom of the bar. ‘This is my sister.’

The man snorted beer onto the bar top. Wiped his nose rather hastily.

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ said Arya. 

He put one big fist on the bar and turned to them a little more. A dark, scratchy look at Sansa, up and down. ‘You don’t look much alike.’

Thank you very much, she almost said, before stopping herself. Arya scowled. It was all feeling rather awkward.

‘How did the solipsist break up with her boyfriend?’ said Sansa, brightly, before catching the bargirl’s eye. ‘Two double gin and tonics, please.’

‘One,’ said the guy to the bargirl. ‘And a coke for the shortarse.’

‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ said Sansa, and burst out laughing.

‘You’re not the boss of me,’ said Arya, past her.

‘I bloody am when you destroy my bit of weekend peace and quiet,’ he said.

‘How many philosophers of language does it take to change a light bulb?’ said Sansa.

‘I have no fucking idea,’ said the guy, ‘but I’ve a feeling you’re going to tell me.’

‘None. They can't see the referent through the opacity of the phrase 'light bulb'.’ She raised her eyebrows. Let out a bubbling giggle through closed lips.

He just stared at her. ‘Right,’ he said, and watched Sansa pay for the drinks.

‘Come on,’ said Arya, tugging at Sansa’s sleeve. 

Sansa walked backwards so that she was still facing him. ‘Do you ever wear a kilt?’ she said, quite loudly.

‘Not in a high wind,’ he said. ‘Off with you.’

Arya had pulled Sansa round the corner next to a fruit machine.

‘Who was that incredibly rude man?’ said Sansa. With the colossal shoulders. You could yoke him and have him carry buckets of water. Or gin.

‘My counsellor. Sandor.’

‘ _That_ is your counsellor?’

‘ _Was_. Mr. Lannister has let me off the hook. Pod has cured me with sex and fencing.’

Sansa glanced back round the corner again. He was hunched over his drink, and watching Match of the Day up on the telly in the corner, his hair hanging down over the slightly disfigured side of his face.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Arya. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘Think about what?’ Sansa looked at her fingernail and tried not to look guilty.

‘What the fuck is it with you and older men?’ Arya leaned back so that her back thumped against the wall. ‘You are so entirely gross.’ 

Sansa sat straight and put on a carefully-innocent face. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You think Professor Sleaze was bad. God, Sansa, get a grip.’ 

Get a grip. That’s exactly what she _should_ be doing, thought Sansa, with the gin fizzing merrily through her brain. Getting a grip and working on her happiness. Like Meera had said. Maybe a rebound wouldn’t such be a bad thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PICSET! If anyone fancies shouting about it on their tumblr, you can link to it [here](http://i.imgur.com/eR4ZrIE.jpg?).
> 
> **PROFESSOR SWIMMINGFOX'S PHILOSOPHY-IN-A-NUTSHELL CORNER** :
> 
> Utilitarianism!
> 
> John Stuart Mill believed that the more freedom people have, the happier they will be. He said that we should all be free to pursue our own happiness as long as our attempts do not interfere with the happiness of others.
> 
> Critics argued that justice was more important and a utilitarian approach would undermine that. Mill said justice depends on happiness, so IN YOUR FACE. Mill was also a bit snobby about things that could make you happy - he much preferred people to find happiness via high arts rather than low arts, ie he would have preferred Henry James to EL James, ah ha ha.
> 
>  
> 
> **  
> **  
> ANTHROPOLOGY/ANCIENT HISTORY ASIDE:  
>  In around 400BC, Herodotus described how the Budni, a large and powerful nation, all had bright red hair and deep blue eyes. Oh Petyr, you learnéd charmer, you.
> 
> **  
> **  
> BRITISH NOTES FOR ALL YOU OTHER WEIRDOS:  
>  Wetherspoons = chain pub conglomerate, looked upon extremely snobbishly by the likes of me, though it does do an excellent cheap breakfast.
> 
> sick = good, brilliant, awesome, etc
> 
> For those who haven’t read Potential *glares*, some basics are:
> 
> Year 11 is aged 15/16 (Arya’s year, which she’s just finishing). You do your GCSE exams then.  
> Year 12 is aged 16/17.  
> Year 13 is aged 17/18 (Pod’s year, which he’s just finished). You finish your A-Level exams that take you to university then.
> 
> The age of consent in the UK is 16, and the drinking age is 18.
> 
> As an aside, and if you haven't read Potential, Tommen is Tywin Lannister's grandson, but miraculously they are no relation to the Baratheons.


	2. Deconstruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RARRRGGGHHH thanks SO much to everyone for commenting! It really makes a huge difference to my current state of crazy work-related exile! Anyway, hope you like how this continues – it’s all written bar teeny edits so is quite funny having to reel myself in and not change anything following that y’all say. Anyway: SPOONS!
> 
> PS Hope you enjoy my attempt at a different philosophical slant to each chapterrrr.

_“To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.” Jacques Derrida_

***

**Sansa**

Two days. It had been two days.

Sansa stared at her period tracker app. She was regular as clockwork, what with the Pill. And yet – her period had not arrived. She had looked up the percentages online. It was inconceivable – yes Sansa, she told herself, the perfect word. 

She couldn’t be - she didn’t even want to _think_ the word. Sansa put her hand on her stomach and tried to imagine something growing there, something that had small, intensely mossy eyes and luscious, inordinately fabulous red hair. Oh god. She would get a test kit from Boots tomorrow. 

Tonight she would not think about it. Tonight she would only think of her goal of self-happiness. Happiness. A word that the more she said it to herself, tried to taste it on her tongue, the more it lost all sense of signifier or signified, which was very post-structuralist when she thought about it. 

Anyway, whatever happiness was or meant, she was going to attain it. Tonight, Sansa had a plan.

***

**Arya**

‘You look magnificent, cousin Sansa.’

‘Thank you, Robin,’ said Sansa, quite grandly. She was in her skinniest jeans which made her legs look annoyingly, giraffe-level long, and was pulling on a little yellow jumper emblazoned with the word HAPPY. Sansa glanced over at their cousin. ‘You look -’ Today, Robin was wearing a wig that he had covered in talcum powder. ‘Um.’

‘Mozart had written three symphonies and ten violin sonatas by the time he was my age,’ said Robin to them both, matter-of-factly.

‘Got a lot of catching up to do then, bro,’ said Arya. ‘Go on, go and write your second arm-farting concerto or whatever.’ She waved him out of her room and turned back to her sister, who was applying another coat of postbox-red lippie. ‘Are you really going out on the pull?’

‘Yes,’ said Sansa. 

‘On your own?’

‘I’m going to meet Jeyne.’

‘I thought she was in Magaluf.’

‘Just come back.’

‘Ok. Cool.’ Arya started drumming her hands on her thighs. Maybe she should whack on bright red lipstick. No. Pod would just grin at her. He wasn’t really into that. Or heels with jeans, which is what Sansa was slipping into, to make herself even _more_ giraffey. ‘Um,’ she said. ‘Sis.’

‘Yep.’

‘How do you know when you’re in love with someone?’

Sansa stopped pressing her lips together and swivelled round to her, her recent gloominess replaced by something more beaming.

Arya scowled at the floor.

‘ _Arya_ ,’ said Sansa, in a soft, super-pleased way.

‘Shut up. I just want to know. How you know.’

‘I don’t know. I thought I was. In love. But now I’m not sure.’

Arya bit on her fingernail. Black polish flaked off onto the floor. It was just a word. A stupid word. It didn’t mean anything, really. But at the moment, when she thought of Pod, her stomach felt like it was on pre-heat. When she thought of him weeping on her shoulder, she imagined killing people for him. In fact, she had quite elaborate fantasties about taking a whole army of awesome wolf-headed girls to battle in order to save him from some evil deathlord.

‘Just tell him, Arya. He’s crazy about you. If he doesn’t say that he loves you back, I will totally -’ she looked around for something.

‘Have sex with the creepy leech dude.’

Sansa looked at her blankly. 

‘The guy Lysa went out with. Studies leeches at the university.’ She hadn’t met him. ‘He’s, like fifty,’ Arya said, to be helpful. 

Sansa raised her eyebrows in an assessing and quite obviously not bothered, almost excited, and therefore utterly rank, way. ‘Done.’

***

**Sansa**

Sansa had thoroughly lied to Arya about Jeyne, who was indeed still in Malaguf, merrily Instagramming pictures of herself in fruit-patterned bikinis perched on the laps of various, and variedly-spotty, boys. It was only she, the hopeless Sansa Stark, who ended up falling into the expensively-scented arms of older, and ultimately adulterous, lovers. She couldn’t help it. She just quite liked older men. When she was fifteen she had had a serious crush on the family GP and kept pretending to be ill just so that she could go and have a thermometer put under her tongue by Dr. Seaworth, although after the fourth visit, the sexy, badgery-bearded Geordie informed her parents that she was a hypochondriac and gave them leaflets for counselling.

Which was why she was back in the brightly-lit Wetherspoons pub that she had been in last Saturday, perched on a stool at the bar, waiting to see if that huge Scottish non-kilt-wearing non-friend of Arya’s might come back. He had said something or other that had made her think this place might be a regular haunt. Hair of the dog, she told herself. And then she could go out with a cute boy like Jon once her morale was up.

It was an uncouth place at this time of the week. She had already had two quite unpleasant men wearing Bristol Rovers scarves attempt, ineptly, to chat her up, and there was disappointingly retro rock crashing out of the jukebox. Petyr would not set foot within half a mile of an establishment like this – his style was rather more wine bars with low lighting and Kir Royales and waitresses with designer short skirts. Perhaps she would just finish this drink.

Her phone buzzed on the bar-top. Another message from Petyr. _I’d love you to get in touch. I think you’re in Bristol? Please don’t ignore me. I’m desperate to see you_. 

With supergirl-strength of will, Sansa had managed not to reply to his several short messages, which had been sent every other day. It hadn’t stopped her staring at her phone for hours, trying to decode the meaning behind every word – she could hear him saying them in his measured, chamois leather-polished way, close to her ear – but she had banned her fingers from pressing _send_ , even when she composed responses that veered from poised and fabulous to desperate and begging.

Sansa put her hand on her stomach again. She would not be pregnant. If she was pregnant, she should probably not be drinking vodka. So she was not pregnant. She would think like a subjective idealist. All in the mind.

Distraction tactics. Sansa swiped through Robb and Theon’s latest travelling-round-the-world photos – they were currently in Vietnam, giving the thumbs-up while sitting on elephants – and when she looked up, a little spark went off in her ribs. He was there, at the far end of the long bar. That hair gave him quite a hulking Viking vibe, or maybe a Celt or - what was the other one – a _Pict_. Unreconstructed Pictish Man. Sansa sat up a little straighter and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Coughed, demurely. Glanced sidelong at him. He was wearing a very faded-looking Led Zeppelin t-shirt and frowning at the barman. You couldn’t see those scars from this side.

A louder cough. Nothing. Fine. Sansa rose, took her drink and walked in a perfect, catwalky line over to him.

‘Fancy seeing you here,’ she said, putting her drink down.

He turned, surprised, and looked her up and down. ‘The Stark sister.’

‘Sansa,’ she said, and slid onto the stool next to him, which swivelled her in a semi-circle in the wrong direction. Classy. She inched herself back towards him with her feet on the rail. ‘Pleased to meet you. Xander, right?’

‘Sandor.’ He was eyeing her with a mixture of suspicion and puzzlement. ‘Where’s the underage pipsqueak, then?’

‘Oh, she’s not here. I’m waiting for a friend.’ She glanced at her phone to emphasise that flagrant lie. ‘How about you?’

‘Meeting someone.’

‘A date?’

He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘A friend.’

Quite how he could possibly be a school counsellor, Sansa wasn’t sure. He was rather intimidating. But she could do this. She could chat up a semi-attractive man at a bar. Because she was going to get over Petyr. Hair of the dog. She tipped her glass up, and drank most of her vodka in one. ‘Um. Have you had a nice day?’

‘Been alright.’ He frowned at the bar as his drink came. Frowned at the drink. Glanced at her from behind his hair. ‘You?’

‘Oh, yes, wonderful.’ Mostly spent trying out rebound outfits and occasionally collapsing into a sobbing puddle. 

‘You a student, then?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’ A stupid, gullible one. ‘Politics and philosophy.’

‘Got any more jokes for me?’

She tried to remember all of Jojen’s. He’d had a stack of them, as if cards hidden up his sleeve, and each one delivered with exactly the same laconic charm. She could see why Arya adored him, even if they clearly spent most of their time getting stoned together. ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’

‘I think I know that one,’ he said, rather dryly.

‘No, you don’t.’ She raised her eyebrows at him. 

He sighed. ‘Go on, then.’

‘Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is dead, dammit, dead!’ She slammed her hand on the counter. The barman glanced over and so did the two Bristol Rovers fans.

He gazed at her. ‘I don’t get it.’

She tapped her fingers on the bar. ‘You have to have read Derrida, really.’ 

He looked blank and shook his head. ‘Never heard of him.’

‘Your loss,’ she said, with an air of fabulously learnéd vivaciousness.

‘Aye, I’m sure,’ he said, with an air of extreme sarcasm.

‘Who do you read, then?’ She truly hoped he had some sort of answer. If he said ‘I don’t read books,’ then perhaps she’d have to go back to those Bristol Rovers fans.

He sniffed. Looked at the bar counter, which was utterly un-fascinating. ‘Iain M. Banks, at the moment.’

He had very magnificent upper arms, she thought, and was about to ask him more about his science-fiction reading habits when a man was there, slapping him hard on the back.

‘Alright, fella.’ 

Sandor turned to him. ‘Alright, pal.’

‘Sorry to keep you. Traffic.’ The new guy glanced over at her. He had a lean face, an assured grin, and quite a nice Northern accent. Leeds, maybe - they all sounded a bit the same to her. ‘Hiya, love. I’m Bronn.’ He held out his hand.

‘Hello, Bronn,’ said Sansa, and introduced herself. To be honest, he was quite fit. But she had set her sights on Sandor. And Bronn had a wedding ring, she noticed. Sandor definitely did not have one of those.

‘Have you not got this lady a drink yet?’

‘No,’ said Sansa, airily, raising her eyebrows at Sandor, who gave her a surprised sort of scowl. ‘He hasn’t.’

A wry smile from Bronn, who had probably been a fox in a former life, as he put his hand in the back pocket of his jeans. ‘What’ll you have then, sweetheart?’

Sansa raised herself up off her stool and looked at the very slim range of vodkas again, and the choice of three gins – she was rather partial to a Bombay Sapphire. Caught the slight sneer on Sandor’s face as she eyed them all. ‘What are you drinking?’ she said to Bronn.

‘Dark-as-fuck ale,’ said Bronn. 

‘Then I will have a dark-as-fuck ale as well,’ said Sansa, and Sandor raised his eyebrows at her. 

‘Good lass,’ said Bronn, ordering three pints of something called Dark Side.

***

**Arya**

‘Why are you still here?’ said Jojen.

Arya had popped round to his for a quick drink to get her courage up before going to Pod’s. He’d be on his way home by now. ‘Keeping you company so that you don’t have another night alone wanking over the thought of your virgin boyfriend,’ she said.

Tommen was playing a rugby away match for Casterly Academy, and Jojen had already painted a blissful imaginary picture of him being held face-down in the mud by a load of jug-eared bigger boys. 

‘He’s quite up for it, you know,’ Jojen said.

Arya looked at him. The whole thing with Tommen was his apparently delicious unattainability – he’d only been a challenge in the first place, due to being the headmaster’s grandson, and she swore that part of Jojen loved the fact that he couldn’t actually _have_ him, in all his no doubt blushing, ridiculously wholesome entirety. ‘Is he?’

Jojen nodded, in his sleepy, sly way, the look of a dozing cheetah. ‘I was reading him Sartre’ – that alone made Arya snort violently; Jojen was always one for schooling the ignorant – ‘and he told me he wanted to suck my cock, though he said it in slightly more delicate terms. I basically had to fend him off. For moral reasons.’

Arya burst out laughing. She could not imagine in a thousand years cute little not-quite-sixteen-year-old, almost-head-boy Tommen proposing that to Jojen. He probably just wanted him to stop reading him wanky French philosophers. ‘Jokes.’

Jojen eyed her quite archly. ‘Don’t know why you’re laughing. My penis is a very alluring prospect.’

‘Of course it is. Aw, it’s very sweet. You’ve been basically a celibate monk this whole time and even when he throws himself at you, you resist him.’

‘I was being responsible,’ said Jojen, quite thoughtfully, to his poster of ‘À Bout de Souffle.’ ‘Though I’m not sure I can be for much longer.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Maybe I’ll pop round to his. He’ll be back soon.’

‘Go get him, tiger. Though no biting.’

‘Oh _god_ ,’ said Jojen, dreamily, before putting an arm behind his head and looking over at her. ‘Anyway, you’re the one with the mission tonight. Pod is getting _told_.’

Arya pulled a face. ‘I wish I hadn’t said anything to you. You were supposed to talk me out of it.’

‘It’s very romantic,’ said Jojen. ‘Obviously love is a post-structuralist nightmare, at least according to Barthes, but, you know, you can still say the words if it gets you off.’

‘Ugh,’ said Arya, and took a last swig of rum.

***

**Sansa**

It was far easier to talk once Bronn was there, mostly because he was charmingly self-effacing and made her laugh and feel quite normal. She couldn’t really do the rugby chat but impressed them with her knowledge of Premiership managers (Petyr had a True Blue Membership at Chelsea, obviously) and Formula One (which she used to watch with Arya, who would design cars for it, cars which all ended up obliterated in massive explosions). And Sandor slowly seemed to relax a little, too, if still eyeing her with a certain amount of wariness.

‘Right,’ said Bronn, downing the dregs of his pint. ‘That’s me.’

‘Where are you off to?’ said Sandor, twisting round to him.

‘Ah, you know. Places to be. An extremely tall wife to lavish attention on.’ Bronn’s eyes flicked lightly over to Sansa’s before he looked at his friend again. ‘I’m sure you’ll cope.’ He gave her the merest sliver of a wink as he took his coat off the stool.

There was awkward silence, filled only with the raucous sounds of Bristol’s less sophisticated nightlife. Sansa took another gulp of her pint and tapped her fingers lightly on the bar. Probably most of her lipstick had come off now.

‘How’s that?’ he said, nodding at her glass.

‘Delicious,’ Sansa said, quite defiantly, even though her ale mostly tasted of burnt tyres.

‘Another?’ A hint of challenge in his voice.

‘Um. Maybe I will have something lighter,’ she said, with an attempt at aloofness, as she realised that this time he was actually buying her a drink and therefore this was actually going quite well.

He grinned and ordered her a bottle of wheat beer. ‘Where’s your friend, then?’

Sansa looked at her phone wallpaper. Demonstratively pretended to scroll, pressed a few buttons. ‘Damn,’ she said, with a heavy sigh. ‘They’re not coming out after all.’

He stared at her. ‘Boyfriend?’

‘No. It was a girlfriend. A friend who is a girl, I mean. I’m not a lesbian. Not that there is anything wrong with lesbians. I saw the film ‘Carol’ and it was wonderful.’ Oh god. Every word that she was saying was a rubbish one. One string of association after the other, Derrida nodding on with a pipe in his hand as she proved his point. She put her hands under her hair and let it fan out and over them. ‘What I’m saying is that I do not have a boyfriend any more.’ It was meant to sound nonchalant, but she felt a pang of sorrow and self-disgust.

‘Oh, aye,’ he said, watching her with what seemed a faint curiosity.

‘ _Aye_ ,’ she said. ‘He was a bastard.’ It was the first time that she had said such a thing out loud.

‘Must have been.’

She looked at him.

‘To leave someone like you in the dirt.’ He gazed at her for an extremely intense half-second, before drinking very deeply from his glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PICSET. Linkable [here](http://i.imgur.com/Q4UKO9K.jpg).
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  **PROFESSOR SWIMMINGFOX'S PHILOSOPHY-IN-A-NUTSHELL CORNER** :
> 
> Deconstruction!
> 
> Maverick ole’ post-structuralist (Roland Barthes was another one of those) Jacques Derrida was all about how that language is an endless signifying chain – unless there is a definitive end point, you can never be sure what a text means. The first few words of an unfinished sentence might go in all sorts of directions; and even if something is said plainly, it can easily be misconstrued. He believed that there was an inevitable underside to language, with multiple meanings bubbling under the surface. Or over the surface. ‘Surface’. That’s not a good deconstructionist word. Nor is ‘word’. AGH!
> 
> I loved [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a2dLVx8THA). 
> 
> And this is an [awesome 1-minute video on Derrida](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQbWOXxag-0) that is very funny. 
> 
>  
> 
> Subjective idealism!
> 
>  
> 
> The notion that the mind and ideas are the only things that can be definitely known to exist or have any reality, and that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified.
> 
> **  
> **  
> BRITISH NOTES  
>  Boots = the main chemist/pharmacy store chain. There is also Superdrug, but Boots is better.
> 
> Chelsea FC is a bit of a wanker’s team, really. Hence Petyr supporting them. (NB wanker = dickhead, tosser, um, douche)
> 
> ‘Jokes’ = ‘ha, how funny.’


	3. Language-Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers again for all the comments! They are like vitamins.
> 
> (Also, dammit, I forgot to put my Derrida quote at the beginning of the last chapter! There is supposed to be one to further set out the philosophical theme each time.)

_'I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.' Ludwig Wittgenstein_

***

**Sansa**

‘Honest. You and Friedrich would’ve been proper bromance buddies.’

Sansa was most of the way through her wheat beer and beginning to feel a bit more bolshy. She had managed to slightly haltingly steer her post-Bronn conversation with Sandor through SF books (she had read China Meiville at least), the Scottish referendum (he was a staunch yes-voter) and the finer points of The Walking Dead (he said he was afraid of zombies). Though he was clearly not very interested in philosophy, as she had just informed him that his world view (she had actually used the phrase _weltanschauung_ , with perfect pronunciation), was quite Nietzschean, and he was looking rather blank-faced.

‘Right,’ he said, raising his eyebrows at his half-full pint. Although he probably saw it as half-empty.

Still, it seemed to be successful so far. He hadn’t gone yet.

There was a cheer from behind them and they both turned round to see a group of students moving away from the pool table.

She looked at him. ‘Wanna play?’

Even a half-smile made all his crazy scars crunch up. ‘I’ll beat the living hell out of you.’ His voice was as thick and dark as the stout that he was drinking. 

Sansa stretched her arms up. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ she said.

‘Oh, wouldn’t you?’ He rubbed his nose between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Want to bet on that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sansa, trying to look a little more apprehensive. ‘I’m a bit broke.’

Two and half games later, Sandor was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, sporting an expression that mixed annoyance with something near-impressed. ‘You’re a bloody hustler,’ he said. 

‘You were the one who wanted to put money on it,’ Sansa said, putting away her last red. She was always better when she had the red balls. She leant over the table, one heeled foot coming off the floor. Glanced surreptitiously at him. He was definitely looking at her arse. Actions speak louder than words, as Wittgenstein would totally have never said. She potted the black.

‘Fucking bollocks,’ he said, to the table. 

She straightened, triumphant. She may have been a shit-loser of a lover, but she was badass at pool. ‘Another?’

‘Are you joking? You’ve just cleaned me out of thirty quid.’

‘If you win this one you can all have your money back.’ She raised an eyebrow and hoped that it looked fabulously arched, like a ballerina’s leg. ‘Promise.’

He shook his head. ‘Christ. Fine. All or nothing.’ He picked up his pool cue again.

All or nothing, Sansa told herself, watching him set the balls up. It was a bit hard to tell, but probably his arse was wonderful under those jeans. Yes, this was her, sizing up a grown man like a piece of meat. She could do this. Petyr was nothing to her. Rebound. 

He was still grumbling when she potted her third yellow whilst making sure that she leant with poised and deliberate slowness over the table. Tonight, yellow didn’t seem to be bad either. A couple of guys had come over to wait for their game to finish.

‘You’ve got a live one there, mate,’ said the taller one, who had a nose piercing and a tattoo of a snake on his arm. He was staggering slightly.

‘Aye, well, she’s good at pool is what she is,’ Sandor said, his arms folded.

The guy whispered something to his mate, who gave a sort of laugh mixed with a snort. Sansa tried to ignore them. 

‘What’s that, pal?’ said Sandor.

‘Nothing, man, nothing.’ 

‘You’ve got something to say, say it.’

The snake-tattooed man glanced at Sansa in a way that made her feel slightly sick. ‘Just saying I’m happy to play the winner. As long as it’s her.’

‘He likes a woman bent over a table,’ said the other one, with a snigger. 

Sandor pushed himself off the wall with his foot. ‘Alright, fuck off, both of yous before I do you.’ 

Sansa’s heart started beating red and yellow and black. This was probably the sort of thing that happened all the time in here. Drunken brawls and pool cues in people’s eyes. It was a Wetherspoon’s, after all. Oh god. 

The two of them seemed to take a moment to think about it. ‘Not worth it, mate,’ whispered the taller one.

‘Aye, believe me, it’s not,’ said Sandor. She supposed his scarred face made him look a bit scary, though she hadn’t really thought so. ‘Get to fuck.’

They sloped off to the bar. Sansa let out a long, careful breath and rested the end of her cue back on the table. ‘Thank you,’ she said, measuring the angle of the white to her next yellow. Potting it.

‘Aye, some thanks you’re giving me. I’m not going to win my money back, am I?’

She flashed him a smile. ‘Quite possibly not.’ The two men were still loitering at the bar, looking back over at them. But it didn’t seem as if they were going to be returning in a hurry. He was pretty fearsome. And he’d defended her. That was actually very sweet. ‘How on earth did you end up being a school counsellor?’ she said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She missed her shot and straightened. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘Oh, aye.’ He raised his eyebrows, and looked thoroughly offended.

‘No, I just – it doesn’t seem like the most obvious job for you, that’s all.’ The idea of him doling out advice to her stroppy little sister was hilarious.

‘What’s the most obvious job for me?’

Bodyguard. SAS. Maybe a really shouty, sweary chef, like Gordon Ramsay. Pictish Man model at the British Museum. ‘Chef. Shouty chef,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘You haven’t seen my cooking.’ Potted his red. This game was a bit tighter. As he narrowed his eyes at the shot, Sansa put her elbows on the edge of the table, opposite him, and tried to catch his eye. ‘Stop it,’ he said. She leant down a little more and put her finger on her bottom lip, dragging it down, just as his cue made the little, sharp _thock_ against the white. He missed.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said and pointed the end of his cue at her. ‘That’s not allowed.’

She grinned and eyed the table, before in four deft and precisely-angled moves, finishing him off. ‘Ta daaaa,’ she said as the black rolled in, and finished her fourth drink. Or was it fifth? Nietzsche would not approve. She sauntered up to him and put her hand out. 

Sandor stared at her, before getting his wallet out of his pocket. ‘You’re worse than your bloody sister,’ he said, fishing out three ten-pound notes. He whipped them away from her just as she went to take them, and Sansa made what she hoped to be an adorable, kittenish (sex-kittenish) face. There was a sliver of a moment, one that felt much longer, during which he looked at her lips and her stomach did a fourteen-year-old Chinese Olympic gymnast move. 

He gave her the tenners. ‘Way worse,’ he said.

‘I’ll use them to buy the next round,’ she said. 

‘You want another? Here?’ 

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘But we could go somewhere else.’ She took a step closer to him so that there was barely anything between them at all. There was the faint smell of deodorant.

The air seemed to have thinned. He didn’t move, watching her with his head ever-so-slightly to the side, as if she might turn into a zombie and try and gnaw his head off. ‘What’s your game, then?’ His voice was quiet.

She still had the pool cue in her hand and leant on it with a langourous sense of victory. ‘Pool, obviously.’

‘No.’ He had grown rather more serious. ‘What’re you up to?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look, I’m not an idiot.’ There was something wary and a little vulnerable in his sidelong look. ‘Someone like you doesn’t hang around with someone like me.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said. His stare became more blunt. She let her eyes flicker down to his Caterpillar boots. ‘I’m just – I’m getting over someone.’ Who may have impregnated me.

‘The ex-boyfriend?’ 

She’d always called him her _lover_. Because she was an idiot. ‘Mmm-hmm.’

He stared at her for a moment longer, and sniffed. ‘Alright. Last round is on you.’

They went to another pub, a seventeenth-century inn with very loud rock pounding through from the upstairs floor, and Sansa found herself sitting on a black leather sofa telling Sandor about Petyr, a little, whilst trying to avoid making herself sounding like a gullible no-hoper with candy-floss for brains. 

Sandor was actually pretty good at listening, though he kept interjecting to tell her what a twat Petyr sounded. ‘He shouldn’t be shagging a student of his. Isn’t that against regulations?’

‘It’s not illegal or anything.’

‘Aye, well, it’s not very bloody ethical.’

Sansa had her knee bent up next to one of his massive thighs, rather close. He had a long, thick forearm slung on the back of the sofa, quite unselfconsciously. She could just lean (fall, swoon) over and have her face in his ginormous lap. 

The bell went. ‘Drink up, folks, bar’s closing,’ called the landlady.

They both looked over at her, and not back at each other.

‘Reckon I should put you in a cab,’ Sandor said. 

Sansa had lost focus what with spilling her life story all over him. She was on the rebound and that did not mean going home on her own with absolutely no action. She sat up and tried to look lascivious again. She would go for it. ‘Or I could - come back to yours.’

He looked at her. Removed his arm from behind her. His eyes were like a very flat, dark grey sky, with just the faintest hint of dawn. ‘You’re not serious.’

‘I’m perfectly serious.’ She put on an arch, perfectly serious face, and hoped that she didn’t look too drunk. 

His gaze was a strange mixture of darkly watchful and rather resigned, somehow. He pulled his bottom lip just a tiny bit in with his teeth. Sighed. And stood up.

***

**Arya**

Arya was lying on Pod’s bed whilst he took off his uniform. He was earning some money over the summer working crazily-long hours in a factory, packing eggs, and sometimes came back with feathers in his hair. I am in love with you, she practised in her head. I am in love with you.

‘Did you smash it today?’ she said instead. Their regular joke.

Pod was putting on some tracksuit trousers. ‘Totally.’ 

‘You don’t have to wear anything else, you know.’

He smiled and lay down next to her, yawned. He was extremely, bangably cute when he yawned. There were some crazily cartoony, trash-can bleepings coming from his speakers. He had recently discovered music made from retro video games - next he would probably be playing her music made from the sounds of a pig being butchered or music that could only be performed in helicopters.

Arya plucked a teeny feather from his eyebrow. _Say I am in love with you_ , instructed a certain small part of her brain. _No_ , said another part of her brain, beating the other part up. 

‘Where is the best place to learn about eggs?’ she said. Pod looked at her with one eye shut. ‘In the hen-cyclopedia. What do you call a city of 20 million eggs?’

Pod made a gentle groaning sound behind closed lips and pulled her closer to him.

‘New Yolk City!’

‘Not funny,’ said Pod, with both eyes closed.

‘Why can’t you tease egg whites?’ Pod put a hand over her mouth. Arya spoke under his fingers. ‘They can’t take a yolk.’ 

He grinned, still with his eyes shut. 

She put her fingers under his waistband. He wasn’t wearing any pants. Yum.

‘I’m a bit knackered,’ he said, very softly, into her neck.

‘You’re never too knackered. You’re a machine. That’s your thing.’

He rolled onto his back and put his arms over his head. ‘All I see are eggs.’

‘Not my eggs, though. My eggs are behind bars.’ She crossed her arms into an X. ‘And yet.’ She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘They are still gagging for it. What happens if you play table tennis with a bad egg?’

‘If we have sex, will you stop telling me egg jokes?’ he said, moving his arms onto his forehead and looking at her. That flush of pink on his cheek.

‘Abso-fucking-lutely,’ she said, and jumped on top of him.

***

**Sansa**

The cab journey had been very quiet. In fact, silent, apart from Sandor berating the taxi driver for taking a wrong turn. The driver would have assumed that they were a couple that had had a terrible fight rather than two people who basically didn’t know each other. 

I am going to have sex with this man, thought Sansa. Because then I will be over Petyr. She was slightly nervous about how completely massive he was, practically as broad as two Petyrs, but he’d already defended her against those two wankers in the pub, and he had been Arya’s school counsellor and therefore was not going to tie her to the radiator or anything. 

Sandor lived up on the hill in Clifton, at the end of three funny little 1970s semi-detached houses smack-bang in the middle of some much more grand old townhouses. Maybe it had been bombed in the Second World War. 

He walked straight into the kitchen, turned the tap on and filled a pint glass with water. Handed it to her. ‘Drink,’ he said.

‘Oh no, I’m fine, thanks,’ she said, wishing the light wasn’t so bright and hoping her eyeliner wasn’t entirely on the other side of her face. His kitchen was narrow, and he obviously hadn’t washed up for a day or two.

He shook his head. ‘Drink it. I want you to be making choices with at least half a fucking clear mind.’

Something in Sansa gave a little. He _was_ very sweet. If sort of irascible and sweary. She took it and followed him to his living room, sat on the sofa and drank it all down, taking a covert glance around as she did so.

There were framed film posters (Trainspotting, A Long Good Friday) on the wall and a slightly uninspired watercolour of some Scottish loch. A deconstructed copy of the Saturday Times all over the coffee table, so at least he wasn’t a tabloid rag-reader. He had a massive TV on the wall and tons of DVDs underneath, though she couldn’t quite see what they were from where she was sitting.

He had sat opposite her on a chair, watching her gulp her water. 

‘How long have you lived here?’ she said.

‘A while. Since I started working at the school.’

‘What did you do before?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘I _do_ want to know,’ she said, crossing her legs, and wondering when would be the best time to go over and sit on him. Instead she leant her cheekbone on her hand and gazed at him in what was ideally a sexy psychologist sort of way.

His eyes really were very dark grey, like stone that had been rained on. ‘I know what you’re doing,’ he said, folding his fingers together.

Being a fabulous seductress, she thought. ‘Yeah?’

‘I know you’re just using me. To get back at that twat you were seeing.’

‘No, that’s not it. Not exactly.’

‘I’m not saying I mind.’ His look was darkly admonishing, before he gave a small, rueful breath that was almost a laugh. As if he didn’t quite believe what he had just said.

Sansa suddenly felt extremely guilty. The water was waking her up a bit. What was she doing? Here was someone who would actually sleep with her just because he knew it might make her feel better. She didn’t deserve him, really. She carefully put the empty pint glass on top of the Sport section of the paper. Looked at it for a moment. ‘I think that maybe I’ll go home.’

‘Scared you off,’ he said, his expression turning a little more sour.

‘No, I -’

‘Not even good enough for that,’ he said, a look of self-hatred scratching itself into his face.

It’s not that, she thought. I like you. ‘I’m just tired,’ she said.

‘Aye, right.’ He didn’t look like he believed her in the slightest. Nodded at the door. ‘Go on, then. See yourself out.’

Sansa got her phone out. ‘I’ll just get an Uber,’ she said. ‘Um.’

There was a horrible near-silence while they waited the three minutes for the taxi to arrive, filled only with the sound of Sansa shifting about unnecessarily and Sandor tapping a very clean-looking ashtray on the edge of the table.

‘See you then,’ she said when it was close enough, standing and putting her bag strap over her shoulder. ‘It was nice whipping your arse.’ She looked at him, swallowed at her terrible joke. ‘At pool.’

He raised his eyebrows and gave another non-committal nod. And didn’t get up.

Sansa stood outside on the quiet road, watching the image of the cab inch closer on her phone. One minute. She felt disappointed, and embarrassed, and like a great big massive whore for having come here, and then disappointed again. He had said he wouldn’t mind. He _had_ said that.

One minute. Still.

He had seemed quite hurt really, just now. She’d made it worse by coming here, and then leaving. She was an awful, hideous and horrible person. A cocktease.

Still one minute. God. Uber was way better in London.

At the top of her phone, a message. From Petyr. _I’m coming to Bristol_.

Sansa turned around and stalked back up the driveway. Knocked. She ignored the sound of a car pulling up behind her.

When Sandor opened the door, loud football commentary was on in the background. He looked at her. Stone-slab eyes, with just a hint of a question. Or maybe a hope.

‘I’ve decided to use you after all,’ she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PICSET. Linkable [here](http://i.imgur.com/SIWncJp.jpg).
> 
> ** PROFESSOR SWIMMINGFOX'S PHILOSOPHY-IN-A-NUTSHELL CORNER: **
> 
> Language-games!
> 
> Ludwig Wittgenstein was all about people saying what they mean. Language is a tool for getting things done, and we should not try to make words do things that they really can't (like describe massive concepts such as truth, the nature of free will, consciousness, etc). It’s what we do and who we are that gives meaning to our words. He coined the term 'language-game' to designate forms of language simpler than language itself - 'consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven'. Language is a part of an activity, or a form of life. The rules of language are like the rules of games; thus saying something in a language is like making a move in a game.
> 
> Nietszche!
> 
> Freiderich Nietszche (Neetch-er/uh) is very much misconstrued as a nihilist. God is dead, and all that gubbins. He actually had some very encouraging and rather positive wisdoms. Embracing envy really meant understanding the success of others and aiming to get there yourself one day. His rejection of religion was in favour of the beauty of culture, philosophy and art. He was very interested in getting people to work out 'how to become who we really are,' rising above difficulties to embrace whatever life throws at us. My kind of guy, for realsies.
> 
> He also thought people should not drink alcohol. He drank water, or if he was feeling fancy, milk. Again, my kind of guy ☺
> 
> ** WHO-CARES-ABOUT-PHILOSOPHY-WHEN-YOU’VE-GOT-AN-EGG-JOKE PUNCHLINE TIME: **
> 
> _Q: What happens if you play table tennis with a bad egg?_   
>  _A: It goes ping, then it goes pong._
> 
> Badaboom.
> 
> ** POD’S ESOTERIC MUSIC CORNER RETURNS! **
> 
> The music that Arya and Pod are listening to is some chiptune, or 8-bit music: electronic music that is either made for sound chips used in vintage computers, consoles and arcade machines or simply emulates those sounds. [Listen to it!](https://pixelh8.bandcamp.com/track/industrial-zone) It’s clearly the perfect music to have sex to! 
> 
> Obviously the [pig-being-butchered music](https://accidentalrecords.bandcamp.com/album/one-pig) actually exists. 
> 
> And the [music in helicopters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13D1YY_BvWU). 
> 
> ** BRITISH SLANG-TIME: **
> 
> ‘Get to fuck’ is a slightly odd Scottish alternative to ‘fuck off’, not a typo, haha. 
> 
> As is ‘yous’ as a collective form of ‘you.’


	4. The Repressive Hypothesis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! This is a humungous chapter (for me!). Well, I had quite a lot to fit in. 
> 
> I'll get my coat.
> 
> PS DO NOT FORGET THAT PANTS = UNDERWEAR, OH YE NORTH AMERICANS

_'We demand that sex speak the truth [...] and we demand that it tell us our truth, or rather, the deeply buried truth of that truth about ourselves which we think we possess in our immediate consciousness.' ― Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction_

***

**Sansa**

‘Please can I have some more water?’

‘Help yourself.’ Sandor was standing next to the sink, his arms folded, leaning against the counter. Watching her. 

This was a very strange situation, Sansa thought, drinking her pint of water extremely slowly, the glass tipped up. She had knocked on the door and essentially told this man that she very much intended to have sex with him after all, here, tonight, and now she was feeling extremely nervous. He was very large. Maybe all of him was large. Maybe he would squash her. Or damage her. Internally. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she could make this water-drinking last now.

Carefully, she put the glass down and held the knuckle of her thumb up to wipe the side of her mouth. Now he was looking at her mouth. She lowered her hand, swallowed, and looked at him. Her heart had started treading water in her stomach.

Neither of them said anything. The light was really very bright. Petyr had lights on a dimmer switch controlled by his voice. He would just say _darker_ , and the room would glower a little more.

She could still leave, probably. Again. Maybe it would make him angry this time, but he’d let her go. She could just say – 

‘I like your kitchen,’ she said. 

He raised his eyebrows. 

‘The tops look, um, durable.’ Oh god. 

The way he had his arms folded meant his biceps were even bigger than they had seemed in the pub. Like he could crush boulders with them.

‘Did you have it put in – recently?’ she said, her voice winnowing away into not very much at all, because she was entirely an idiot.

Sandor’s eyes narrowed and lots of lines appeared in his forehead. A very darkly amused look. ‘Did you knock on my door again because you wanted to discuss DIY?’

Sansa put her lips together and looked at the floor. The light above them was making a tiny, ticking noise, like a timebomb. She could do this. She wanted to do this. Raised her eyes again, dragging her sexy, smouldering, seductive self at least partly back up with them. ‘No.’

There was a long moment, or possibly it was a short moment, as they stared at each other, and the air seemed still and scratchy all at once. His eyes flickered to her mouth again. And then Sandor had taken the two steps towards her, and she had taken one step towards him and they practically crashed into each other, and there were hands and mouths and lips. 

No gentle, exploratory, sensual kissing here. Straightaway their tongues met, and both of them (mostly Sandor) were breathing heavily into the other’s mouth and both of them (mostly Sansa) were gasping, and hands were on cheeks and beard and shoulders and Sansa was being pressed, quite forcefully, against the kitchen top and his whole arm was curling around her waist and pulling her into him before they careered back against the counter again.

Sansa’s elbow came into contact with something and there was a bright, high smashing sound. They looked down at the mug she had just toppled off the counter. ‘Sorry,’ she said, or rather gasped.

Sandor had pale red lipstick smears around his mouth. ‘No bother,’ he said, and pulled her even closer. 

There was quite a lot of beard. Far more than the artful stubble she had been used to. He tasted of burnt tyre (Bath’s finest Dark Side ale) and mint (toothpaste, clearly a surreptitious dash to the bathroom at some point) and he was the strongest thing. If she weren’t so turned on she’d be quite concerned about being asphyxiated.

Sansa could quite utterly feel his erection through his jeans against her lower stomach. And she could also feel it against her arse when he turned her around against the kitchen top. She leant over onto it, pushing various things (plate - possibly last night’s curry – Queen of the South FC tea-towel, her pint-glass) out of the way so as not to destroy them with her wayward elbows.

Reaching round from behind her, Sandor’s hands were pulling her jumper and her t-shirt up and finding their way to her bra. _Under_ her bra, so that one of the cups shifted off and up and his fingers replaced it. Extra support, Sansa thought faintly, whilst fumbling behind her for his hip so that she could pull him closer.

The thumb of his other hand was tucking under her belt and her waistband and her pants, trying and not quite succeeding to get any further. She helped him a little, undoing the top button of her jeans, not quite believing that she was spread-eagled over a counter in a rather bright and not entirely clean kitchen with a very large and very tall and quite-a-lot-older man behind her. 

He pulled her jeans and her pants down at the same time, and she felt his lips on her bottom. And his teeth.

‘Oh god,’ she said.

He stopped all movement, squatting there on his heels. ‘Sorry. I’ll slow down.’

‘No, it’s ok. I don’t mind.’

‘Don’t you?’

She craned round to him and shook her head. He looked rather reproachful, if with a sense of wonder, his eyebrows tilted very far apart from each other. ‘You’re just – bloody hell. You’re bloody sexy.’

Am I? she thought and felt desperately happy. 

‘I’m -’ he swallowed, glancing at her bottom, and straightened. ‘Back in a sec.’ 

He disappeared and Sansa looked at the cup bits, scattered like a big thick eggshell all over the slate tiles. She picked up the four largest fragments. Wondered if she was going to need the toilet halfway through this seeing as she’d just drunk two pints of water.

Sandor returned. He stopped short, eyeing her – bits of broken cup in her hands, her jeans round her thighs – and shook his head. ‘Fucking hell.’

‘I’m really sorry. Should I put them straight into the bin?’ 

‘No,’ he said, the word drawn-out and quite impatient. ‘Stop apologising.’ He took them from her and tossed them in the sink – an alarmingly loud, clattering sound – put a hand on her hip and turned her round the face the kitchen counter again. ‘I want you where I left you. If that’s ok.’

‘That’s ok,’ Sansa said, quite faintly, as she turned away from him. It felt partly like she was just having a think about her shopping, the way she was leaning on her elbows next the fridge and gazing at the vinegar and cooking oil bottles, except that there was a man half-crouched behind her with – yes, there it was – one finger inside her. Two. And there was the sound of a buckle and a zip and the rip of plastic in teeth, and Sansa used her foot to shove down one leg of her jeans, and then the other, and he was helping her off with her heels and her entire bottom half altogether.

She was ridiculously turned on. There was a low throbbing in her stomach that she had never had before as Sandor’s condom-covered penis came into contact with her inner thigh. One hand on her hip. The tip of him. 

It slightly hurt and she shifted a bit, to try and make room for him. It still hurt. She tilted her bottom. That was a bit better, but he didn’t seem to be going in very far. She was rather lower down without her heels on. Oh god. It had all gone very quiet. No gasping or horse-heavy-breathing. She moved slightly to the left. Painful. To the right.

Sandor stopped behind her. ‘Bollocks,’ he said.

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ she said, tipping her head round to him. ‘They haven’t a hope in hell of fitting in.’

‘Ha bloody ha,’ he said. ‘Right. Forget that.’ He turned her round and, with both hands around her waist, hoisted her onto the kitchen counter, facing him. His eyes were really astonishingly grey, she thought for the fifth time, or perhaps greyly astonished, looking at her as if she had just only appeared – a fairy imp with no pants on, sitting next to his dirty dishes.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Hello yourself,’ he said, and came in for a kiss, another deep, tonguey one that made Sansa open her legs a little more as well as her mouth, and pull at his t-shirt until he removed it, and pull off her jumper and top.

‘Oh. Wow.’ She stared at him.

She still had her bra on, and he still had his jeans and pants round his ankles, but apart from that they were suddenly rather naked. Sandor was pale, apart from much browner arms, and preposterously broad, even more so without his t-shirt on, as broad as a house, as broad as a row of houses, and with the most hair she thought she had probably seen on any man. Tons of it, dark and all the way down to his crotch. Basically a bathroom mat. His faint scars curled their way down to his collarbone.

And underneath the hair on his chest, circling down from his collarbone on both sides like a great mayoral chain, he was tattooed. Two thin, snarling dogs facing each other, done in an ancient, tribal style – Viking, or Celt perhaps more likely. ‘Pictish man,’ she said, distantly.

‘Picture what?’ he said, before glancing down at her properly. ‘Christ. You look like a porn actress.’

She blinked. ‘In - a good way?’

‘I mean, aye, of course, just -’ he waved faintly down between her legs. ‘Wasn’t expecting that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s just -’ He eyed her hair, swept mostly over the front of one shoulder. ‘It’d be nice to have a wee bit of that colour down there.’ Nodded down at her crotch. 

That’s not what Petyr had said. Sansa flushed with an odd mixture of pleasure and embarrassment and looked past Sandor’s shoulder. 

‘No,’ he said, another long, drawn-out one, though rather softer than the last, and put his hands on her thighs. ‘You do what you like. Ignore me. I just like the colour of your hair, that’s all.’ He pulled her towards him, so that she was perched on the very edge of the counter, with her legs around his waist, and looked at her, his eyes turning careful and dark and a little desperate. ‘Ok?’

‘Ok.’

God. Well, at least this worked better. She was higher up and the angle meant that he could work his way inside her, slowly, quite slowly, all the while telling her in rather incredulous tones how wet she was, and with occasional, creatively-verbose swearing. Sansa felt that low, sweetly intense pain in her stomach again, and tried not to look at the post-it shopping list stuck on the cupboard opposite her ( _cereal, bread, Tabasco sauce, don’t forget fucking milk_ – the latter underlined, heavily) and concentrate on what she was doing, which was having a really very sexy rebound shag. In a kitchen. In Clifton.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Sandor said, looking down and withdrawing.

There was blood on the condom, a thin veil of it. He looked up at her in some horror. ‘Are you – fucking – you’re not a virgin, are you?’

Her period. It had come. She was not pregnant. Sansa had never been so simultaneously relieved and mortified in her life. All her sexy and food-shopping thoughts disappeared in a micro-second. ‘Oh my god. I’m really sorry.’ She began to push him away, although attempting to push Sandor was a little like pushing a lorry, or a block of flats. She dug her heel into his thigh for extra leverage.

He looked down at her ineffectual attempts and back up. ‘What’s up with you?’

Sansa felt like crying. Her face had rashed red. Her chest. ‘I’m really sorry. It’s my period.’ She shifted back a little and saw that there was blood on the kitchen top, and a few drops on the floor. ‘Oh my god.’ Her eyes began to sting.

Sandor was watching her begin to go into meltdown. ‘Alright, it doesn’t matter.’

Sansa put her hands in front of her eyes. She was sitting almost entirely naked on the kitchen top of a man she barely knew, _bleeding_ everywhere. ‘Don’t you – aren’t you upset with me?’

Sandor looked at her like she was crazy. ‘No.’

‘But –’ she took a big, jagged breath and told him. It came spilling out, horribly appropriately. How Petyr had hated mess of any sort. How he paid for her to go and have extremely painful waxing sessions in a spa in Covent Garden, and inspected the handiwork afterwards. He had insisted on showers both before and after sex, and never together. He utterly avoided her during her ‘red wedding’ as he called it, mystifyingly. Very un-Foucault, and somehow very Foucault, at the same time. Not she told Sandor that last bit.

‘He sounds like a right cunt,’ said Sandor, and put his hands under her thighs. ‘Right, come on.’

‘Come on what?’ she said, her voice wispy.

He pulled her towards him. ‘Arms.’

She looked at him. Put her arms around his neck, over the chain-links of his tattoo. He lifted her up with an expulsion of air through almost-closed lips. She was probably leaving a patch of blood on his stomach. ‘Christ. You weigh more than I thought.’ He turned with her. 

‘That is an incredibly mean thing to say,’ she said, not quite believing that she was being carried down his hallway. Petyr would have talked about the swollen disc in his back and hired someone else to do it.

‘Aye, well, nothing wrong with a bit of meat on a girl,’ said Sandor, hefting her a bit higher. He kicked open his bedroom door.

‘That is even worse,’ she said, even though she knew it wasn’t true, as she had mostly been subsisting on Pop-Tarts and carrot sticks for the last week and had lost a pleasing amount of weight.

The world tilted as he dumped her, quite unceremoniously, on the bed and disappeared. Sansa wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. She lay there, imagining the trail of blood she may or may not have left along his hallway and probably now on his duvet cover, clamping her thighs together, and feeling like the most disgusting person in the entire world.

The room was only illuminated by the hall light. It smelt faintly stuffy in here. 

Sandor returned with a large brown towel. Clasping her ankles in one hand, he raised both of her legs up so high that her bottom lifted too, and shoved the towel under it. Looked down at himself, rolled the condom off and opened a drawer, whilst turning a bedside light on at the same time. ‘Just as well I’ve got a few of these going spare,’ he said.

‘Do you – still want to have _sex_ with me?’ she said in not much more than a whisper, incredulous. 

Sandor stared at her. ‘Are you kidding me, woman? Look at you, for god’s sake.’ He vaguely waved the new condom packet up and down her form. ‘I don’t give two fucks whether you’re bleeding or not. It’s not every day I’ve a –’ he stopped. 

‘A what?’ Sansa said, in quite a small voice.

He took a breath in and ripped open the condom wrapper, putting the new one on – the small hiatus had not seemed to quell his penis’s enthusiasm for the whole operation. He moved her legs apart and knelt down on the bed between them. Looked rather solidly at her, in the way that a piece of long-burning coal is solid. ‘A girl like you under my roof,’ he said. ‘You are fucking beautiful.’

Sansa realised that, for all Petyr’s supple talk of hunter goddesses and exotic tribespeople, this was the best thing that anyone had ever said to her. Because Sandor, in his unpolished way, truly meant it.

‘Oh,’ she said, as he pulled her towards him by the legs, and she said it again as he inserted himself inside her and pushed himself all the way in. _Up_. He couldn’t have gone in fully earlier. ‘Oh my god,’ she said, and felt quite faint.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Sandor. ‘Christ Jesus.’

‘Do you like it?’ she said, some time later. She had never had sex like this before. She was one great melting pot of sloppy ridiculousness, and it wasn’t clean or perfect but sweaty and noisy, and frankly it felt amazing.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he said, as he came.

***

**Arya**

‘I have to tell you something,’ Arya said to Pod.

They were lying facing each other, legs entangled. There was the muggy smell of extremely recent sex. The music, on very quietly in the background, was now some sort of techno but made only with a piano and some muscle men toys.

‘Ok,’ he said. 

Following both the successful distraction of Pod from his post-egg fatigue and her own brain, Arya couldn’t hide from it any longer. She could happily talk about what they had just done, and how it was better/worse than the time they had last done it, and how that thing he did with his tongue/finger/thumb/knuckle/dick/all of the above was completely awesome/hilarious/surprising/well rude/all of the above, which it almost always was.

But now was not the time for sex-talk. If it all went tits up in the next ten seconds, there was at least the prospect of Sansa having to seduce Roose the Douche and having sex with him whilst covered in leeches. Arya had messaged her a few times this evening ( _did u pull? did u both pull? did u pull 1 each? more than 1 each? as long as their not chavs I support u all the way in ur 3some quest_ ), and had heard nothing back. Hopefully she hadn’t been abandoned by Jeyne and was ok and hadn’t been left to die in a corner somewhere.

Arya looked at Pod. He looked extremely knackered, but sort of angelic at the same time, like one of those carved stone gargoyles high up on a pillar in a church. She felt something close to fear, and terror, and hellish darkness at what she was about to do. She took a breath, and shut her mouth again. Glared at his chest. Repeated the process.

Pod’s eyes very slowly changed as he watched her. His eyebrows lowered, as if winching themselves down on abseiling ropes into some museum to steal treasure. He clearly had no idea what was coming.

‘Um,’ said Arya. She bit her lip and thought about getting up and running away.

Pod began to look more concerned, in his own, careful, almost-imperceptible way. 

‘Argh,’ said Arya.

Now he didn’t just look careful. He looked brave. Resigned. As if she was about to whack him, very hard. ‘Just tell me.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘What you need to tell me.’

‘I can’t.’ Arya’s voice was stupidly tiny.

‘It’s ok. I won’t -’ he took in a small, resolute sigh. ‘It’s ok.’

She let out one last breath, and let her body sit there, airless and heavy. Then breathed in, fast, and spoke even faster. ‘I think I’m in love with you.’

Pod didn’t blink, or move a single nerve. And his eyebrows slowly began to hoist themselves up again, one, then the other. His mouth widened until his ultimate-best smile was there. Tinged with relief. ‘I thought you were breaking up with me.’

Arya frowned. ‘Why the hell would I do that? Did you not hear what I said?’

‘I thought maybe you were fed up of egg talk.’ His smile remained. ‘You’d found someone else who didn’t just talk about eggs.’

‘No,’ she said, and burrowed her face into his arm, as she couldn’t really look at him any more for fear of crying with horrific embarrassment.

Pod’s warm breath was on her ear. ‘I’m in love with you too,’ he said, very lightly.

‘Yeah?’ She looked up at him again. The 70% cocoa eyes.

He slid a hand around her waist, his other hand on her cheek, and kissed her, a kiss that was completely perfect in weight and positioning and made her think of a sherbet dip. ‘Of course I am,’ he said, and she fell almost immediately asleep, out of exhaustion and an extra-large helping of relief. 

***

**Sansa**

‘Sorry about that,’ Sandor said, lying next to Sansa. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

‘That’s ok,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind.’ Somehow, it was more attractive than Petyr’s endlessly patient ministrations, watching her with a forensic eye so that he came just a split-second after her, with one polite, half-voiced moan, even though he’d been getting her to tell him all manner of unrepeatable things just moments beforehand. She had turned Sandor onto such an extent that he had been unable to control himself. It was the perfect compliment. ‘You’ll just have to make it up to me later,’ she said, feeling quite daring. Well, she had come this far. They had just had crazily bloody sex, and their stomachs had made a squeaking noise together.

He barked a laugh. ‘Aye. That I can do. Give me a minute. Or maybe an hour. Or five. I’m not the man I was.’ He glanced at her. ‘How old are you, anyway?’

‘Twenty,’ she said.

‘Christ on a bike,’ he said. 

She looked at him. 

‘I thought you were older. By a couple of years.’ He sighed. ‘Bronn’ll never let me hear the end of that.’

‘How old are you?’ she said.

‘Thirty-seven,’ he said, eyeing her with wariness.

Four years younger than Petyr, she thought. She was working her way downwards. ‘Very youthful,’ she said. ‘Sprightly.’

‘Aye, well, not right now I’m bloody not,’ he said. ‘You’ve done me in.’

Sansa finally took the room in as she lay there on his towel, feeling quite thoroughly - well, there was no point in beating around the bush - fucked. One wall was painted a deep red, the perfect colour for tonight, and a huge map of the USA hung above the head of the bed. There were three coffee cups and a pair of unfashionable-looking glasses on the bedside table on top of a book called ‘What They Are Really Trying To Say: Child Psychology’, and an overflowing wastepaper basket that seemed to be partly filled with socks.

Petyr’s bedroom – looking out to the wide trunk of the Thames and the famous beachside hangman’s noose outside The Prospect of Whitby pub – had a distressed brick wall, chocolate and cream overtones on all soft furnishings and a mirror on the ceiling. A cleaner came every three days. Sandor did not have a cleaner. Because he was a normal person.

‘I should get back,’ she said.

Sandor rolled over towards her, the dogs on his chest alarmingly close. ‘No bloody chance in hell.’

Sansa felt a slight flare of panic at his vehemence. ‘What?’ she said, quite carefully.

‘No way on God’s green earth are you going home.’ He leant on an elbow, looming over her, with an odour of – well, sweat mostly, like wet moss-mulch in a forest. ‘I’ve got this far. You’re staying the night.’ He said it in a way that sounded like she didn’t have much of an option, and yet it was the loveliest thing, really, to be so adamant. Petyr had often called her a cab and said he needed to think about his book, even if it was two in the morning and raining outside. 

‘Am I?’ she said. 

‘Aye,’ he said. 

‘Can I have a shower?’ If only to rid herself of the Twilight-levels of blood all over her thighs.

‘I can do you one better than that,’ he said.

Five and a half minutes later, Sansa was up to her ears in bubbles in Sandor’s bath. He had gone a little overboard and upended the whole half-bottle. It was decided that he couldn’t quite fit in there with her, seeing as he was ridiculously massive, so he was sitting on the ratty bathmat on the floor next to her (revision: the bathmat was slightly more hirsute than he), completely and unselfconsciously naked, with his legs apart. Staring at her.

‘What?’ she said, sinking down into the bubbles.

‘No way,’ he said, leaning over and yanking her back up so that her breasts were mostly exposed. ‘I didn’t put you in there to have you hide.’ And he put his big forearms on his knees and stared again with as much fierce attention as he probably gave to the Six Nations.

‘You are totally not what I expected,’ she said.

‘What did you expect?’

She tried to think how to tactfully convey Arya’s impression of him without using her actual words, which had included _stupid, rude, bastard_ and _fucker_. Though she was sure that Arya liked him really. 

Sandor seemed to know what she was thinking. ‘Don’t tell me. Your sister.’ He leant an arm on the side of the bath and put his chin on it. ‘She’s a proper little psycho.’

‘Not any more.’

‘No, not any more.’ With the echoey acoustic of the bathroom, his voice had an extra rich, stewy sonority. ‘That lad’s put some sense in her.’

‘Even if you didn’t.’ She raised her eyebrows at him.

‘I helped her. You don’t know. I’m very skilled.’ He raised his eyebrows too from where his head leant on his arm, and there was something suddenly adorably doggish about him, and she leant forward and kissed him. Put her bubble-covered hands on his beard and kissed him some more. Bathwater slopped over the side and he didn’t tell her off and immediately phone the cleaner to tell her to come a day early.

Instead, Sandor slipped his tongue into her mouth and his hand into the water and between her thighs, and Sansa made a very loud gasp that bounced off the olive green tiles.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Time to make it up to you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PICSET. Linkable [here](http://i.imgur.com/tJzQETZ.jpg).  
> 
> 
> **  
> **  
> PROFESSOR SWIMMINGFOX’S PHILOSOPHY-IN-A-NUTSHELL CORNER:  
>  The Repressive Hypothesis!
> 
> In his 'The History of Sexuality', French 20th-century philosopher Michael Foucault argued that sexuality and our understanding of its history had become repressed and purely pleasurable activities frowned upon. He said that we could not free ourselves from this repression simply by means of theory: we must learn to be more open about our sexuality, to talk about it, to enjoy it. Ultimately, his interest was not in sexuality itself, but in our drive for a certain kind of knowledge, a certain perspective, and the kind of power we find in that knowledge.
> 
> STAY SEXY, PEOPLE!
> 
>  **  
> **  
> POD’S ESOTERIC MUSIC CORNER:  
>   
> 
> This is the awesome best. [PIANO M.U.S.C.L.E.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRbnOAC4AUs>)
> 
> **  
> **  
> BRITISH NOTES:  
>  Six Nations = well boring rugby championship, SNORE.
> 
> *******
> 
> Ta to y'alls for reading! Let me know what you think! I am far away from everyone I love and so I bathe in your comments right now, like Sansa in lavender oil only less sexily!


	5. Emergentism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one, and it ends here. But, you know, if people say they are sad that it is ending, then what happens? I WRITE MORE. Stay tuned for a short continuation, with bonus Jojen POVs and a modern art-focus. I AM SUCH A SUCKER. Cheers so much for all the comments, you guys are sick (That means good).
> 
> Big thanks to ZoeSong for giving this the once-over and reassuring my jittery nerves.

_‘A property of a system is said to be emergent if it is a new outcome of some other properties of the system and their interaction, while it is itself unexpected and different from them.’ GH Lewes_

***

**Arya**

Arya was lying on her back in Pod’s bed, a bit too early. She had woken up ages ago, her brain buzzing from everything she had said last night. Spent quite a while staring at Pod’s great big cheeks and the mole on his neck and his ski-slope eyebrows, thinking _I love you_ , quite loudly. Thinking the phrase whilst actually looking at him felt quite badass, actually.

Now she was bugging Jojen by text. 

_any luck breaking the 4th wall_  
_making Simba into a grownup lion  
scrumming like the big gay rugby playa u r_

Happily, he was awake. _broke the 1st wall_

_result!_

_I can send proof_

_god please dont_

_graphic photographic proof_  
_might break ur phone_

_PLEASE DONT U IDIOT_  
_no gay pron on my phone_  
_*porn_  
_FUCK OFF WITH UR GAYPORNO_

A photo popped up. Thankfully just of Jojen and Tommen, caught mid-kiss, looking annoyingly adorable, whilst Jojen had a big thumbs-up. 

‘Oh thank god,’ said Arya, and Pod stirred next to her. Blinked at her sleepily. She showed him the photo.

‘That’s nice,’ he said. 

She let her phone drop onto the floor and lay on top of him. ‘How do you know?’ she said, a fresh question.

His eyebrows did a little inwards dive towards each other, Olympic-style. Tom Daley and the other one. ‘Know what?’

‘You know. About – what we said. Last night.’ She couldn’t say the words again. Not right now. It had taken Iron Man-levels of strength to get them out. ‘I mean, how can you tell?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, and looked perfectly happy about that.

‘You must know. You’re a physics genius. Isn’t there some book that measures it or something? Breaks it down into lots of little understandable bits?’

He put both arms around her lower back. ‘I think it’s a bit more intangible than that.’

They lay there for a bit, and she listened to the crazy gurglings in his chest that weren’t far off the noises that his modular (Podular) synth made. ‘Don’t tell anyone, will you?’ she said.

‘I won’t tell anyone. I think I’m the only one that needs to know.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, digging her chin into his chest. ‘You are.’

Her phone buzzed. She rolled off him to get it. If Jojen had really sent a photo of Tommen’s cock, she would have to shove knitting needles in her own eyes.

Sansa. _Done something. Don’t hate me. x_

_fuck I was worried - u didnt reply last night!!!  
anyway wut_

Arya lay on her back again next to Pod and stared at the screen. _WHAT?_ she typed again.

_Bumped into someone in the pub. Went back to theirs x_

_R u ok? Do u need Pod 2 judo them? we can come get u_

_No it is cool. Nice. DON’T HATE ME xxxxxxx_ Followed by three rows of flower and heart emojis, alternating. 

Arya suddenly sat up. ‘Oh, you have got to be kidding me.’ _TELL ME U DIDNT SLEEP WITH FUCKING SANDOR CLEGANE_ , she typed.

Pod put a hand on her back. ‘What is it?’

_That would be a lie x_

‘She is fucking unbelievable,’ said Arya. ‘She is the worst. Oh my fucking god.’

_Home in a bit x_

She craned round to Pod. ‘Right. We’re going to mine.’

***

**Sansa**

Sandor made a muffled, groaning sound, as if an ancient Viking/Celt/Pict zombie being pulled up from under the earth. Sansa carefully put her phone on the bedside table (next to a condom wrapper, a crumpled and slightly crusty-edged tissue and an earplug) and looked over at him.

They were lying a little apart, and he had pushed most of the duvet off of himself in the night and lain there taking up most of the bed. And she hadn’t really minded. 

‘Morning,’ he said, in an ancient bogman voice. Rubbed a hand over his face.

‘Good morning,’ she said, rather more demurely, shifting over onto her side towards him, her arms folded in front of her. There were the sounds of a bus rumbling up the road outside. 

‘You talk in your sleep,’ he said.

‘What? No, I don’t.’

‘Aye. You do.’

‘What did I say?’

He frowned at the ceiling. ‘Something about ice cream and consciousness. I swear there was the word ontology, and I don’t even know what the fuck that means. Sounds dirty, though.’ He rolled his head over to her, a grin slowly stirred into his creased-up face. Those scars were really very striking, she thought, imagining massive black and white photos of his profile in some photography gallery in the West End. ‘God, I want a cigarette,’ he said, to the ceiling.

‘Do you?’ She felt a little disappointed. He hadn’t smelt of smoke last night.

‘I’m not having one. I just want one.’ He glanced at her. ‘Trying to give up.’

‘Do you have any painkillers?’ she said.

‘Hungover?’ 

She shook her head. Well, not just that. ‘Period pains.’ It had come on properly now, the worst day of it, all apocalyptic and making her back and stomach and knees ache. 

Sandor nodded. ‘Let’s get you sorted, then.’ He groaned some more as he sat up, and half-rolled off the bed. ‘Jesus Christ, woman. I’m not fit for this anymore.’ 

He was so big and completely unselfconscious, striding out of the bedroom door completely naked, not slipping on any kind of raw-silk kimono or soft-suede mule slippers to pick up his copy of the Guardian from the doormat. Except, come to think of it, she would always pick up Petyr’s paper if he’d let her stay, and make him breakfast in bed, on a little tray, though if the eggs weren’t scrambled to the right consistency, he’d make her do them again.

Sansa rolled over and turned the little digital clock radio by the bed on, and some cheery, scratchy blues tinkered out from 6Music. She had done it, Meera-style. She would have to message her. _Operation Rebound a resounding (rebounding) success_. And she _did_ feel better. Sandor was utterly different, hilariously different, from Petyr. About three days ago, she still thought her life was over. Her life probably wasn’t over. 

‘Here you are, then,’ said Sandor in a strangely garbled voice three minutes later, kicking open the door, a glass of water in one hand, mug in the other, and a tub of pills in his mouth. 

The bed sank by several inches as he sat down next to her. 

‘Thank you.’ She shifted up onto the pillows a little and gulped a couple of paracetemol down.

‘Made you a cuppa,’ he said, leaning over her and putting it next to her head.

She looked at him. Never once had Petyr made her a cup of tea. 

‘Do you take sugar?’

She shook her head and did not say _I’m sweet enough_ , because that was a crap cliché and anyway, she felt like a blob of red, achy jelly.

‘Aye, that’s about right,’ he said, and did not say it either, instead lifting the duvet in a quite brazen effort to get a good look at her. His expression became almost pained.

She was wearing a pair of his football shorts over her pants and nothing on her top half. The shorts were obviously huge on her but at least the elasticated waist partly helped them stay on. ‘I found them in the night,’ she said. ‘Just for – you know, security. With the period. I hope that was ok.’

Sandor’s eyebrows were still up in the heavens. ‘Well, that’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole fucking life. Jesus Christ. Don’t suppose I can convince you to, you know.’ He gave a slow, dark smile that shouted _sex_ and yet somehow was utterly self-deprecating.

She couldn’t help grinning. ‘I feel a bit gross, sorry. Anyway, I don’t want to mess up your house anymore.’

He scratched his nose. ‘Aye, that stain in the kitchen’s not going anywhere fast.’ A matter-of-fact sigh. ‘Gonna have to get expert help in.’

Sansa stared at him, mortified.

‘Joking,’ he said, still with a very straight face.

‘That is not funny.’ She sat up, bringing the duvet with her to cover her breasts, although quite plainly that wasn’t really necessary, and took up her tea. She held her face over the steam. ‘I should get back soon.’ To face the wrath of Arya, if nothing else. 

‘I’ll take you.’ He didn’t look like he’d be moving in a hurry, sitting next to her on top of the duvet, ankles crossed, letting out a long, grumbly sigh as the lilting Welsh voice of the radio DJ introduced the next track. And then he abruptly turned his face to her and said the most wonderful words she had heard in ages. ‘Do you want some toast with that?’

***

**Arya**

‘What the hell,’ said Arya, as Pod’s moped pulled up outside Aunt Lysa’s at lunchtime, next to a slick, dark-forest green sports car – a Jaguar, what with the leaping cat on the front.

She let the door slam behind them.

‘Cousin Arya! We have had a delightful gentleman come to call!’ Robin was already hugging Pod, whom he utterly idolised and had dedicated three solo euphonium compositions to.

Delightful didn’t sound much like Sandor. Last time he had come round, Aunt Lysa had practically blinded him with air freshener. And she was fairly sure that his counsellor’s salary didn’t cover cock-substitute cars. 

‘Okay,’ she said, kicking her boots off and storming down the hallway, ready to chew his ear off if it was him, because sleeping with Sansa was totally and utterly the most dickishly uncool, murderable thing to do.

She stopped short in the dining room and Pod almost bumped into her. Aunt Lysa was at the table, sitting very straight and with a weirdly bright, high smile on her face, talking to a man with his back to Arya.

‘I can’t think of any reason for you to have to be quite so raucous, young lady,’ Lysa said to Arya in a semi-hiss, whilst glaring at Pod, for she was the only person in the entire universe who regarded him with suspicion. She gave the man another oddly beatific smile and he began to turn round.

‘Emergency,’ said Arya. ‘Who’s this?’’

‘You must be Arya,’ said the guy, who was looking more and more familiar to her. ‘Sansa’s told me all about you.’

‘Oh my god,’ said Arya, as the image she had clicked on more than once when Sansa had first told her she was sleeping with him slotted into place with the one she was seeing now. Weaselly eyes, thick-framed black glasses, graying hair and a really expensive-looking jumper that you could never get stains on. Clearly a total wanker. ‘You’re _him_. What the fuck are you doing in our house?’

‘Arya,’ said Pod, quite quietly behind her.

Petyr (with the poncy spelling) Baelish (even poncier), stood up. ‘Looking for your sister. I would love to be able to speak with her – we’ve a little bit of catching up to do.’ He had a smooth, purry voice that clearly had got all up in Aunt Lysa’s pants already, the way she was squirming about. ‘I realise that she is not in, but perhaps you might know where I could find her?’ 

‘Up your _arse_ ,’ Arya said, which was a rubbish answer, but the first she thought of.

‘I see,’ said Petyr, who didn’t look very ruffled at all. 

‘I’m so sorry, Dr. Baelish,’ said Lysa. ‘She can be quite dramatic.’ 

Arya snorted. She had left her aunt yesterday doing yoga in the garden whilst loudly lowing like a cow. ‘You are totally not welcome here,’ she said to him. ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’

The corner of his mouth curled up. ‘Well, I’d like to let Sansa be the judge of that, although it’s very touching how clearly you care for her.’

‘Slick fucking bastard,’ said Arya. ‘You are going to drive out of here right now and never come back.’

He regarded her with a cool, slightly shrewd gaze coated in fake concern, and smiled with pretend-warmth at Aunt Lysa. ‘Perhaps I’ll come back a little later.’

***

**Sansa**

‘Oh god,’ said Sansa, as Sandor’s slightly juddery grey Vauxhall Astra pulled up behind the car that she knew only too well, from two weekends away in the Cotswolds and one quite uncomfortable attempt at a blowjob behind a Norman churchyard in Kent. And Pod’s moped was there.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Sandor, pulling up the handbrake.

‘Um,’ said Sansa. Her heart was rising and would emerge out of her throat at any moment and make a break for it, badly disguised as a hot air balloon.

The door was flung open.

‘Cousin Sansa!’ said Robin, who was clearly having a wonderful morning. ‘Wow,’ he said, as Sandor shut his own door and rounded the car. ‘You’re a humungous _giant_!’

‘Aye, and I eat kids like you for breakfast, so beat it,’ said Sandor.

‘Yes, sir!’ said Robin, happily saluting, and legged it back into the house.

Aunt Lysa was in the doorway.

‘Don’t even think about pointing anything at me,’ Sandor said, putting his hand out to keep her at arm’s length. ‘Just dropping this one off.’

‘What’s happened to her? Isn’t it the holidays?’ Lysa looked panicked. Sandor had driven Arya home after her toe-smashing incident a few months ago. 

Before anyone had time to reply, he was there, at the door. Petyr. The lump in Sansa’s throat grew to the size of a pineapple. 

‘Sansa,’ Petyr said. He had a way of saying her name that made it sound like an exotic language. It had always made her melt.

‘ _Dick_ ,’ said Arya, pushing past him to come onto the driveway, and folding her arms. She gave Sandor a filthily furious glare. 

Pod slipped out behind Arya, nodding gently at Sansa and Sandor, before gazing very earnestly at the ground.

‘Is this who I think it is?’ said Sandor, jangling his keys in his hand.

‘Yes,’ said Arya. ‘Petyr Dickface Cuntknob Baelish.’

Petyr eyed Sandor. ‘And you are?’ He did not look the slightest bit alarmed, even though Sandor was a head taller than him and rather broader.

‘None of your fucking business,’ said Sandor, before looking at Sansa.

I’m sorry, Sansa said to Petyr in her head. Please forgive me. He was in his weekend clothes, brogues and the part-cashmere, part-silk jumper she once accidentally sat on (he didn’t talk to her for two days) and his designer stubble actually looked a little unkempt, for him (he normally went to a barber’s in Soho every week).

‘I’ve been trying to reach you,’ he said to Sansa, quite softly. ‘For several days.’

I know, thought Sansa. I might have been pregnant with your baby. 

‘You’ve been trying to reach into other people’s _pants_ , you mean,’ said Arya. ‘Arsecock.’

Petyr stepped closer and picked up Sansa’s hands. His own were so very smooth. ‘Sansa. It was a mistake. An indiscretion. I was tired. Frustrated because the intricacies of my chapter. She was very persuasive. I wasn’t in my right mind. It won’t happen again.’

‘Too fucking right it won’t happen again,’ said Sandor.

Sansa looked at them all. Her sister. Pod. Sandor. Petyr. Sandor. 

‘I need you,’ Petyr said. 

Persuasive. That was the word she had needed to hear. 

She took another step towards Petyr, and could sense movement from the others. Arya, ready to leap in and pull her away. Pod, ready to stop Arya from doing that. A slight sagging in Sandor’s shoulders and the sound of his keys stilling.

Sansa looked at Petyr, at the Irish-green eyes she had thought of as sharply intelligent when he had first breezed into the seminar room. She slapped him, hard across the face. He almost stumbled.

‘Oh my goodness,’ said Aunt Lysa, fluttering her hands at the door. ‘Oh goodness me.’

‘Fuck yes, motherfucker,’ said Arya, at the same time.

‘You are a vile, cheating bastard and a total liar,’ Sansa said to Petyr. ‘You made me feel horrible about myself. The only reason you want me back is because I’m probably better than that third year at dictation, and because I can order your sentences properly. Your writing is derivative. Old arguments just written with a Roget’s Thesaurus to hand. No one thinks Plato is right anymore. A first-year postgrad could write more _persuasively_.’ 

‘I see,’ said Petyr.

‘ _Dick_ ,’ said Arya.

‘Ssh,’ said Pod, quietly.

‘Time to go, you prick,’ said Sandor, and stepped quite close to him. 

Petyr gazed at him. ‘That’s quite alright. I don’t need an escort.’ He glanced at Sansa. ‘Not really your type, I would have thought,’ he said, in the same way that he had criticised the bottle of wine that she had bought. As if he knew rather better.

‘You have no idea what my type is,’ she said, pulling her jacket around her.

Petyr gave a wry, sad smile, as if he was desperately disappointed in her, and walked to his car. It hardly made a noise as he drove off, apart from the florid, classical violin winding out from the radio.

‘He won’t get very far,’ said Arya.

‘Why not?’ said Sansa, who was feeling a little faint. 

‘I jabbed my craft knife into one of his tyres,’ she said. ‘Reckon that’ll fuck him once he’s on the main road.’

‘Thought you were past all that vindictive stuff,’ said Sandor. 

‘Some people still justify it,’ said Arya. ‘Speaking of which, you and me are going to have words. And maybe a fight.’

‘Yeah, yeah, let’s save that for another day in the ring, shall we?’ said Sandor.

She glared at him. ‘Fine.’ She pulled at Pod’s hand. ‘Come on.’ Then turned back. ‘Oh,’ she said to Sansa. ‘Your leechy sex-date with Roose Bolton is off, by the way.’ A tiny, triumphant grin to Pod’s rather more puzzled one as they went into the house.

Sansa was left with Sandor. He scratched the back of his neck. ‘You’ve a date?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No dates. It’s – it’s a joke of ours.’

He folded his arms and scuffed his toes at the gravel of the driveway. Glanced at her.

‘Thank you for a lovely night,’ she said. Her fingers were still stinging from the slap.

‘Is that what it was?’ he said, which seemed part a rebuke, and part a challenge.

‘Yes,’ she said, quite quietly. He had made her toast and tea, and not minded (in fact, actively very much liked) period-sex, and told her she was (fucking) beautiful.

‘You alright? He going to be bugging you?’ He tapped his temple. ‘In there?’

She shook her head. Pulled her jacket tighter. Shivered, even though it was almost July.

‘Good.’ He glanced away from her down the road, squinting in the sun, as if looking for something important.

‘I’m here all summer,’ she said.

His back straightened and he looked back at her, warily. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘I just have to go back for some exams,’ she said.

‘Right.’

‘So can I see you again?’

Sandor’s eyebrows tried to grab each other in a headlock. ‘Thought you were just using me,’ he said, looking guarded. His eyes were crinkled at the edges with tiredness. His t-shirt was crumpled. He looked like he really needed a cigarette. And yet he was so very much more appealing to her than Dr. Petyr Baelish.

‘I want to use you some more,’ she said. And not just for messy, hairy, fabulous sex, she thought. For dates, and hanging out, and drinking, and talking. ‘Quite a lot more, actually.’ She leant against the doorframe. Held her breath.

Arya’s blitzy dance music started up from her room. Robin’s voice, trilling merrily in amongst it. Arya yelling. Pod laughing. 

Sandor was still gazing at her as if he was trying to work her out. Then something in his face cleared, the creases smoothing away. Most of them. 

‘Fine by me,’ he said, and pulled her in, with Pictish-level strength, for a kiss.

***

_**This is dedicated to the guy who I went on a date with very shortly after the man I’d been going out with (11 years older than me) DUMPED ME FOR A DJ FROM A SHIT MUSIC RADIO STATION. The rebound guy that I dated is now, and has been for nearly nine years, Mr Swimmingfox ☺**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PICSET! Linkable [here](http://i.imgur.com/3OMXlkA.jpg) for tumblr fans.
> 
>   **  
> **  
> PROFESSOR SWIMMINGFOX’S PHILOSOPHY-IN-A-NUTSHELL CORNER:  
>  Emergentism!
> 
> Emergentism is the opposite of reductionism, which argues that everything ever can be boiled down to the basic laws of physics. Emergentism argues instead that there are new properties at the higher levels of nature that do not come from the lower levels. Samuel Alexander said that the mind emerges from life.
> 
>  
> 
> Ontology!
> 
>  
> 
> Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. So, like, sorta everything, innit. 
> 
> **  
> **  
> BRITISH NOTES  
>  BBC 6Music is the best! Everyone should be able to listen to 6Music. In fact, you can! Listen live on BBC Radio. It has rockstar DJs like Iggy Pop, Jarvis Cocker and Henry Rollins.


End file.
